Customer Reviews

Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

#22 of the Uncle John canon is a welcome return to form following the slightly below average (average for Uncle John that is, which is still good) Unsinkable #21 from last year (2008). With #21 it seemed as through Uncle John was beginning to stretch himself a little thin, what with the dozens of special focus books (Sports, Movies, Armed Forces, etc.) released in a short period of time. Or maybe he was succumbing to the pressure from the competing "Armchair Reader" series, which has been gaining ground. What ever the cause, it appears that Uncle John was able to get over it, because this volume is consistently fascinating and contains plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, wow-I-never-knew-that moments, and I-can't-believe-it moments. These include the account of how Hitler's personal doctor poisoned him while trying to cure his flatulence problem, the development of digital photography, a surprisingly plausible explanation for the sighting of ghostly apparitions in drafty old mansions,the story of the man who invented party balloons, and my personal favorite part of each volume, unintentionally hilarious real newspaper headlines (One-Armed Man Applauds Kindness of Strangers).
For the uninitiated, Uncle John's Bathroom Readers illustrate the concept that "truth is stranger than fiction" better than any other trivia/factoid/lists/urban legend/random topic book or series out there. The "Bathroom Reader" part of the title does not mean that the content is predominantly toiletry in nature - it's more of a platform from which Uncle John inserts puns into the material. Each volume contains all new information culled from the international news-wire and from eager contributors around the world, and of course this one is no different - there are plenty of bizarre news items from 2009, some of which must have come in the last minutes before printing. This series is an excellent resource for anyone who does any kind of public speaking; content from here could easily transform any dull presentation into, well, let's not get too overzealous, a presentation that people will find at least moderately interesting. Personally I have been a fan for 15 years now, and I own 26 volumes including all 22 of the original series and the 4 best special focus books; all of them are worth having around. If you were able to invite Uncle John over on the weekend, he'd be the life of the party and leave with all your friends. So it's best to have him in book form sitting before the porcelain throne, to be fascinated by his wealth of useless knowledge on your own time.

A Brief Buyer's Guide for Uncle John

Whether you're just starting an Uncle John collection or are looking to complete one already begun...
Uncle John's 4-ply Bathroom Reader contains full versions of the first 4 books of the series in one handy volume. Uncle John's Legendary Lost bathroom Reader contains books 5-7 in one volume. Between these two cheap volumes you have the first 7 books of the series and a lot of great material to catch up on. The Best of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader has content taken from books 1-7. There are also 150 new pages of content in this book, which makes it worth owning for the completist.
The next 12 books of the series are solid, for the most part, as individual books, averaging around 500 pages each. In chronological order they are: (Uncle John's _________ Bathroom Reader) Ultimate, Giant 10th Anniversary, Great Big, Absolutely Absorbing, All-Purpose Extra Strength, Supremely Satisfying, Ahh-Inspiring, Unstoppable, Slightly Irregular, Fast-Acting Long-Lasting, Curiously Compelling, and Triumphant 20th Anniversary. All recommended!

Beware of these books!!! You will get yourself trapped in the bathroom reading them. People will begin to think you need to go see a GI specialist. Family members with weaker bladders will become quite irate when you have seemingly overstayed your turn in the restroom. Blame Uncle John. You will run out of places to put the important things like toilet paper and q-tips because you must make room to store your collection of Bathroom Readers! Evil things........

My 3 sons look forward to these books as gifts for Christmas. They read them from cover to cover. They actually request them every year.

This is the second bathroom reader that i got for my husband, and he loves both of them. Sometimes i would have to yell at him cause he's taking so long in the bathroom reading the book. :D

If you like the other Bathroom Reader books you'll like this one as well. Uncle John always puts out a quality product for a captive audience.

Not much else I can say about a book you read when you poop.

Edition 22 of UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER is a great example of "getting back to where you belong." I've been a Uncle John fan since the get-go but the editions immediately prior to #22 struck me as being stale, too formulaic. I was thinking the Bathroom Readers Institute crew had gone to the well once too often...but then along comes this gem. Uncle John has hit the bull's eye once again.

At 540 pages, Edition 22 is a hefty hunk of trivia. It features an appealing smorgasbord of articles on specific items and broad categories. Within its pages can be found: weird crimes, a Jar Jar Binks bio, the development of phosphorus, bizarre human-animal encounters, weird political doings, the Gyrojet gun, tongue twisters, a bio of Rube Goldberg, toilet tech, 3D TV, urban legends, mob hits, tasteless toys, soda pops that tanked, the history of rice, food origins, word origins, people who cheated death, Hitler's quack of a doctor, digital cameras, funeral mishaps, real-life ghosts, fads, a history of Alaska, quotes from Julia Child and so on.

Such a delight...and such a bargain at $18.95. Recommended.

How can you not love these books? Full of useless & surprisingly useful information... all while being an interesting read. I find myself reading these books not only in the throne room, but in the bedroom, living room, waiting rooms, and wherever else I find myself with time to read. A lot of the articles spark an interest where I'll do further reading into the subject. Informative, witty, intelligent articles abound in these books!

I have purchased several of Uncle John's Bathroom Readers in the past. Each one is a storehouse of trivia, history, humor, and all kinds of interesting facts. The stories are short enough to read when you don't have very much time. I would recommend this book to anyone.

This was a gag gift for my son for Christmas and was a big hit. So full of entertaining bits of information.

I loved this, as I did with all previous editions. I would have given it 5 stars except the Kindle version does not have the running feet at the bottom of the pages and the pages breaks could be a little cleaner. Other than that great articles are well written and extremely entertaining.